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And if you run a small business, you do not have time to manage all those social networks yourself. In fact, you probably don’t have time to manage even one. Studies show it takes a midsize company about 32 hours a month to capably handle a single social media platform.

So should you even try? Or should you hire someone else to run your social media? The answer is: both.

“The companies that have the most effective social media communications are those that have a combination of internal and external people doing social media,” says Eve Mayer, CEO of consulting company Social Media Delivered and author of The Social Media Business Equation.

Mayer’s firm manages social accounts for clients large and small, including Sheraton Hotels, Chevrolet, and CiCi’s Pizza Buffet of Dallas. When Mayer signs on a new client, she advises the business to take these five steps toward a successful social campaign.

1. Decide What You Want to Achieve

You should not open any new social account simply because you hear it’s now a must-have for a small business. “Having social media just for the sake of social media is ridiculous,” Mayer says. “There have to be actual gains you want to achieve.”

The majority of small businesses don’t know what those are. They have a vague idea at best.

“Most companies will say, ‘We want to drive sales and create brand awareness,’” Mayer says. “But there are a ton of other things they can be doing, like business intelligence and research and understanding new markets.”

Before you establish any new social media presence for your business, you should make a list of specific goals you want that presence to accomplish.

2. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin

As mentioned above, to manage one social media platform right takes 32 hours a month. That’s almost an entire workweek – and unless you’re running a travel agency or a video rental shop, you can’t spare a workweek out of each month to spend on a social profile.

“A small company should choose just one and probably not more than three platforms to focus on,” Mayer says. “It’s very rare you’ll need more than that. Don’t jump on every shiny new thing because that will just distract you and make you lose focus.”

3. Keep Some Social Media In-House

Once you’ve decided which social networks best suit your goals, you can decide whether to handle them yourself. Look around your office. Do you have some employee who likes to spend half his day at Facebook? (Most offices do.) You can turn that to your advantage.

“People expect me to say outsource, outsource, outsource, because that’s one of the things we do,” Mayer says. “But we also help companies find people internally to do social media. Let’s say someone in your company is a great photographer and they like to use Instagram. Utilize that person appropriately, lay out for them the business goals you want to achieve.”

Running social media in-house will personalize your message. Companies that outsource all their accounts often end up with a bland voice and distant customer relationships.

4. Send Some Social Media to a Consultant

If you have a presence at many social sites, you likely do not have the time in-house to give them the attention they need. Can you manage them all yourself? No. Can you afford to devote a couple employees to the task? Probably not.

“Another issue you run into when you keep it all internal is that the content becomes stale, because only one person or two people are contributing to it,” Mayer says. “Or an entrepreneur will do it halfway. They’ll be on Twitter and post once a week and that kind of frequency is not enough.”

Social media accounts demand constant monitoring. If some disgruntled customer posts a negative comment on your Facebook page, you must respond quickly. You can’t afford to have some radioactive review of your business sitting at your profile unanswered for two weeks. It will erode your reputation.

“Social media is a grind,” Mayer says. “It’s all about day-to-day communication and talking with people live and that never ends.”

5. Follow These Rules When Finding Help

Once you’ve decided to outsource some of your social media responsibilities, Mayer says there are certain dos and don’ts to follow.

— “Don’t choose someone who says they know everything about social media, because that person is lying. Social media is very fluid and it’s impossible to stay on top of it all.”

— “Don’t go with a one-person outfit, because that person might not be around long-term.”

— “Don’t be swayed by consultants who say they’re ‘industry specific.’ You need a partner who understands social media, period. If you understand social media you can apply that knowledge across many different industries. It’s more important to have a good methodology for how social media can convey messages and build relationships to achieve business goals.”

— “Do investigate how a firm does its own social media, because if they’re not doing it well for themselves it’s unlikely they’ll do it well for you.”

— “Do look at the clients they’ve worked with and talk to them about their experience.”

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While I agree with many of the points outlined in this article, I would be cautious with the following: “Once you’ve decided which social networks best suit your goals, you can decide whether to handle them yourself. Look around your office. Do you have some employee who likes to spend half his day at Facebook? (Most offices do.) You can turn that to your advantage.” First of all, if an employee whose current job has nothing to do with Facebook is on Facebook half of the day, that may be a problem in and of itself Is he building his farm on Farmville or engaging in useful conversations? Also, remember that this person will represent the public face of your company. Knowledge of the channel or technology, although necessary, represents only a small portion of the success or failure in social media communications and marketing. When I’m looking around the office, I would rather find the person who is engaging with customers daily, enchanting them toward brand loyalty and trust. A successful customer service rep isn’t necessarily the person who talks on the phone the most, or understands the technology behind telephony best — even if most customer service reps need to know how to use a phone. A successful advertiser isn’t necessarily the person who watches TV all day, even if he is exposed to more advertising than his peers. I would rather take someone with remarkable communications and marketing skills and teach her the technology behind social than take someone who lacks these skills but has spent hours on Facebook. All that aside, I do agree with the main point of the article that promotes a shared responsibility of social mar/comm between the consultant and the client.

I quite disagree with you my friend. What the author was trying to say which i assumed should be clear to anyone reading is that, the first ingredient to selecting your potential social media representative if you wish to do it yourself is by identifying that member of staff that is very familiar with that social media of your choice and taking their flair for the social media to another level which is an advantage to your business. Social media services is a consultant services that requires some level of expertise. The potential internal staff will still need to go through virtual training with the Social Media Specialist where they gain all the tools needed to successfully manage your business internally.

You will agree with me that it is a good value for money to train an employee who already has some social networking experience than attempting to train someone who has never login to their facebook account in more than a year or who does not even have a facebook.

Actually, I am indeed very clear on the the fact that the first ingredient mentioned is to identify the staff member most familiar with using a social network — with “familiar” being qualified as time spent. It’s the very point I addressed in my comment.

I’ve trained many internal staff members on social media mar/comm over the years. When I do the math, training on the how-tos (those skills that come merely through spending many hours on a social network, e.g. what is a like/RT, how to post a status update, etc.) of a given social network that is built with ease of use in mind is much less time consuming than training skills in engagement, communications, customer service, marketing — skills that go much deeper than the channel itself. Facebook didn’t surpass 1 billion users by creating a social network that is difficult to use. Based on Facebook’s statics, I could easily identify hundreds of millions of people just as qualified to be given the social media torch as the guy in the office spending a lot of time on Facebook, when using time spent as the qualifier. In 2013, these people are no longer a rarity. They would need a LOT of training, however, before I as a business owner would be comfortable handing my brand and voice over to them.

On the other hand, bringing a good marketer/communicator/etc. up to speed with the how-tos of social networks with the guy who spends half his day on Facebook is easy and can be done within a day-long group session (again, there are hundreds of millions already there with no training even needed). Teaching someone how to influence people, drive action, build trust and create brand loyalty — regardless of the channel or technology used — takes a lot more time and energy.

Again, I agree with the main point of the article: It can be very wise to find someone already on the payroll and already familiar with the brand to take on a social media-related role, and the role of the consultant in this case is to help give the internal employee the skills needed to succeed in the long term while stepping in from time to time, if needed, to help from a strategic standpoint. My only difference in opinion is who I pick to train when I’m looking around the room.

Tim/Tom – Great points. As the CEO of an agency who manages social as part of our services bucket, I can firmly say that Social Media Management and driving (online branding) results therein is not a one man job. It takes training, professionalism and collaboration between all parties (whether that be client and agency) or if done all inhouse, between all marketing people who touch the brand. Further, social, as one person commented here, certainly takes an ongoing understanding of the specifics of each (important) social network (based on the client – B2B. B2C, etc.). Small businesses, as the author points out, cannot effectively manage social and focus on their core business (and grow). Mid-size and Enterprise companies may require professional Social Media Marketing training (by channel, by reporting level/analytics. etc.) Without going on and on (as I do in my long articles on SMM and SMO on ClickZ etc), I can sum up my comment by stating that SMM has elements for any sized organizations that most likely requiring outsourcing ,whether that is strategy, management or training. Thank you for sharing!